An overhead travelling carriage runs along a running rail provided near a ceiling of a factory or a warehouse in order to transfer and load articles on stations. The overhead travelling carriage comprises, for example, a body, an elevating and lowering drive section, and an elevating and lowering section driven by the elevating and lowering drive section to elevate and lower to chuck an article. If any station is offset from a position immediately under the running rail, it is difficult to transfer articles between the overhead travelling carriage and this station. In addition, the transfer is difficult when the station requires chucking from a predetermined direction and if the overhead travelling carriage is offset from this direction. Correcting these points requires a complicated mechanism in the overhead travelling carriage.
An object of the present invention is to use a simple configuration to enable a locational offset from a station perpendicular to the running direction of the overhead travelling carriage or an directional offset from a station within a horizontal plane to be corrected in order to transfer and load articles on these stations.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a simple mechanism for movements perpendicular to the running direction and rotational movements within a horizontal plane.
An additional object of the invention is to provide a configuration for enabling the elevating and lowering drive section to be moved or rotationally moved in a horizontal direction.